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Topic: 2017 Forum Redesign Feedback Thread (Read 7603 times)

This new 10th anniversary forum design was intentionally pushed public ahead of time in order for me to style elements visible only to Guests. Since this isn't really a secret anymore, I thought I'd get your thoughts on it right now before we blow it wide open still ridden with bugs.

Just some pointers I'd like to mention:

The theme was based off of Eco Friendly because I'm clueless when it comes to forums. All the HLC themed styling were simply hacked in with extremely messy code. I styled things that I thought were relevant to the core experience, but you'll know when you run into some out of place default assets.

The theme is unfortunately not responsive or full screen, as my attempts to do so may break everything. What's actually important is images such as embeds or attachments are now made to fit inside the layout with no scroll bars, allowing for a maximum of 736px wide before being resized and resampled by your browser engine. Be mindful of this if you really care about presenting your images in 1:1.

Custom Titles now really look like custom titles and is treated to compliment your display name (see my own), where as Personal Text is treated as something like a motto or quote. As you may already know, these can be customized in Forum Profile, custom title can be found just right above your signature field.

All sub-forums are now visible to the public in an effort to expose more accurate forum activity to guest lurkers.

I'm considering Steam mini-badges similar to HIT, but I'm not sure how to do this. Just a consideration at the moment.

I'd like to make new thread topic badges and unify the look.

Personally I'm a little unsure of the orange [!] icon used for new sub-forum activity on the forum index. Also, if there are any general legibility issues, let us know.

I've seen some great content in the past month, and I would really like to remind some of the neighboring Half-Life communities like Sven Co-op forums or even HIT that we just got relaunched, however it's not going to look all that convincing when we only get a couple posts every 4 days or so. I think we need more consistent activity whether it be banter or releases (new or old). I had this thought that maybe we can dig through the HIT archives and just repost the shit out of everything we can find with images, credits, and downloads in attempt to populate this place with content, if we can't manage it with discussion activity. I don't know if this will sit nicely with the original authors despite being credited, but in this post-2013 Steampipe era it's been pretty deserted. I'm sure some of you awesome HLC people have been doing this for years, but maybe we can get more people on it.

HIT lost its attachments if I remember right, and many of the hosted links are dead but I doubt anyone would have an issue with it this many years later. My thoughts on the matter are the content being archived is a public service.

On that note: what happened to the model dump idea? A stable online (ftp) repository where people can upload/archive old HL shit. Is that aleady a thing? Having something other than gamebanana to rely on is always a good idea. Unfortunately my external hdd with all my old backups and files died overnight, so i wouldnt be able to contribute much myself. Might help drive more traffic to here as well.

On that note: what happened to the model dump idea? A stable online (ftp) repository where people can upload/archive old HL shit. Is that aleady a thing? Having something other than gamebanana to rely on is always a good idea. Unfortunately my external hdd with all my old backups and files died overnight, so i wouldnt be able to contribute much myself. Might help drive more traffic to here as well.

Model dump exists and is used by some users. I've been handing out logins to those that have asked for them so they can upload stuff. You need one Spork; just say the word.

But, who's gonna be doing the new threads? Have the mods/admins move the individual posts from the RHITFS one by one to their own separate threads or have users make the new threads themselves?

Going forward, I think users should start making new threads. For the RHITFS thread and other existing stuff, I don't mind giving it a try. But after getting the new HLC site up, I'm trying to focus on getting my own site up and getting a job at the moment. The clean up isn't urgent unless someone wants to do it.

But, who's gonna be doing the new threads? Have the mods/admins move the individual posts from the RHITFS one by one to their own separate threads or have users make the new threads themselves?

Going forward, I think users should start making new threads. For the RHITFS thread and other existing stuff, I don't mind giving it a try. But after getting the new HLC site up, I'm trying to focus on getting my own site up and getting a job at the moment. The clean up isn't urgent unless someone wants to do it.

Interesting, looks just like my iPhone 4 iOS 7.1.2. I have no idea how this even happened because I tested on Chrome and Gecko. I guess it's a good thing at least one person uses IE No promises, and I don't even know where to start.

On that note: what happened to the model dump idea? A stable online (ftp) repository where people can upload/archive old HL shit. Is that aleady a thing? Having something other than gamebanana to rely on is always a good idea. Unfortunately my external hdd with all my old backups and files died overnight, so i wouldnt be able to contribute much myself. Might help drive more traffic to here as well.

Model dump exists and is used by some users. I've been handing out logins to those that have asked for them so they can upload stuff. You need one Spork; just say the word.

There is also the HIT Model Depot as well that has some older stuff.

Do you guys still host Millenia's page? I remember he had a big ol' model dump on it.